What Was Said at the G20 Demo on HIV and AIDS Funding?
by Max October, ACT-UP Philadelphia
September 22, 2009 - 5:42pm (Print)
Quotes from today's procession on HIV and AIDS funding at the G20:
Latasha Mays of New Voices Pittsburgh: Women of Color for Reproductive Justice talked about:
the importance of funding global AIDS program, especially because the US puts so many political restriction on their prevention spending. The Global Fund, on the other hand can fund innovative, scientifically-based prevention and reproductive health programs.
Reverend Jeff Jordan of the Metropolitan Community Church said:
Just because there is a depression, we cannot stop," he said. "Three million people a year are dying of AIDS and we need to make sure that funding goes forward. ... Only 74 percent of the people with AIDS in the world that are living get the proper medication, and that's a sad number...It's time to stop funding death and start funding life.
Khafre Abif, local AIDS activist living with HIV, spoke about how lucky he is to have access to medicine so that he can stay alive to raise his children, and challenged the G20 to provide that right to everyone living with HIV/AIDS no matter where they live.
Mongezi Nkomo of Azania Heritage International and the Black Radical Congress addressed the situation in his home country of South Africa, where people are still dying of AIDS without access to the life-saving medication that has changed life expectancies for people in countries like the US that can afford those medications.
Other speakers included Laverne Holly of NYCAHN and Jose DeMarco of ACT UP Philadelphia.
